Typewriter 1

“_________ IS A STUPID IDIOT!”

Reminder: Donald Trump is a Tremendous Idiot

7 Reasons why Liberals are Incapable of Understanding the World

Whenever I see articles with titles like these, I get pretty upset. Before the piece has even begun, the author’s language has communicated that they (1) lack the basic decency required to have productive discussions, and (2) are probably too biased to understand the other side, if they’re even able to. 

Essentially, these articles serve mainly to ignite the passions behind the like-minded people who routinely read them. When our nation is the most polarized it has been in 20 years, what we need are avenues for discussion and debate that promote understanding rather than hoisting up a winning individual or ideology. 

Do you know one of the best ways to make someone close off their willingness to consider competing ideas? Insult them or someone they support. And not only is it a bad strategy for discussion, it’s just rude. I am liberal-leaning, yes, but the only reason I would ever flat-out dismiss someone is not if their ideology differs, but if they’re being a jerk and not even attempting to understand a different point of view. I simply don’t want to surround myself with people like that.

I don’t exactly know how we can begin to change this volatile climate, so I will instead leave you with a quote that is becoming more accurate every day:

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil. — Charles Krauthammer

con·jec·ture | kənˈjekCHər

A while ago I was Googling "Conjecture" to see where my YouTube channel would come up in the results. The first thing anyone sees when Googling it is this:

Seeing that was…fun. I guess I knew the meaning of the word before I created my channel, but I had always interpreted conjecture as more of an educated guess, almost like a hypothesis. 

Later on, @Blackmak5 tweeted this photo at me:

A general conclusion based on facts and results? That’s way better than what Google said. But now I had these two pretty different meaning of conjecture, so I wanted to do some digging and find out what this word really means. 

Let’s start off with the etymological origins.

Here we see that the word “conjecture” comes originally from the combination of the Latin “con” (together) and “jacere” (to throw). So the word’s original verb form, conicere, literally meant “to throw together,” referring specifically to thoughts. The word's noun form, conjetura, represented the product of thrown-together thoughts: a conclusion. 

So the modern word “conjecture" should be what you get when you piece results or thoughts together. That’s how I had interpreted it, and it's the definition @Blackmak5 found in his math textbook. But that sounds very different from the current definition Google provides, "an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information." Somewhere along the line an additional connotation was added to the definition, that the information used to form it is inherently incomplete. That connotation may have been the Old French influence, or simply a result of the way language changes. I don’t know 

But wait, the definition @Blackmak5 found was from a math textbook…so is there a mathematical definition for “conjecture” different from Google’s general definition?


Let's take a look at Wikipedia's definition of mathematical conjecture:

"In mathematics, a conjecture is a conclusion or proposition based on incomplete information, but for which no proof has been found.” That doesn’t really bode well, either. But it goes on to say that conjectures "have shaped much of mathematical history as new areas of mathematics are developed in order to solve them.” 

So while the layman’s definition has "conjecture" as a conclusion formed by throwing together a bunch of incomplete information, mathematics interprets conjecture more like an idea that encourages the development of new science. That is the definition I want to get behind. 

Or, you know, I could just change my channel name to conjecturevlog since that’s my channel twitter and subreddit, and it’d make everything more unique, searchable and consistent. 

We’ll see. 

I Don't Like Personality Tests

In one of my classes we talked about personality tests and other related measures used for interviews. The class was boring, but the ideas we were talking about weren’t, so I wrote a lot of this post in that class (what a good example this sets). 

A lot of personality tests feature polarizing question—they’ll ask, “If you have the option of going to a party or reading a book, what would you do?” My answer for this would almost always be “it depends.” What’s the book? Am I 30 pages from being finished? Is anyone I know at the party? Is this a going-away party for my best friend? There are so many variables that play into a simple question like this, yet you’re supposed to choose either book or party, and then be judged as an introvert or extrovert off of that. Obviously, there are other questions on the exam meant to support the overall test’s findings, but so many of these questions only you to respond in this dichotomous manner. 

What I’ve found about regarding my personal levels of extroversion and introversion is that I display the defining qualities of both introverts and extroverts pretty frequently. This means I (along with many others) am considered an ambivert. What really determines how I’ll act is my mood and situation. Am I really happy that day? I’ll be more extraverted. Tired or sad? I’ll be introverted. Have I been really active and talked with a lot of people that day? I’ll carry over that energy, and continue to do that. Have I been keeping to myself that day? I’ll probably stick to that. And though most people may lean more to one side than I do, there really is no person that’s purely extraverted or purely introverted.

The ultimate point I’m trying to make here is that we as humans are complex, and though I think personality tests have promise, at this point they don’t do a great job of describing us. Here’s another example:

There’s this concept known as Locus of Control. It’s the idea that you are in control of your life, that what happens to you in life is the result of your work and actions, etc. There’s a personality test that measures LoC, and it tries to predict concepts like your level of self-efficacy and how much control you perceive yourself to have over your life. They ask questions like what happens to me is the result of my own actions and I am where I am today because of my actions. To me, these polarized questions just don’t include the complexities of real human lives. For example, I totally believe that a lot of what happens to you is the result of your own actions, but a lot of people face prejudice and discrimination that could legitimately prevent them from getting as far as they can go. I also think that I played a large role in getting my life to this point, but I would be mad to say I didn’t get help from my parents, or upper-middle class upbringing, or other experiences. 

So when I see these types of questions, I move the tool to say I agree around 50–70%. The test comes back and tells me I have moderate Locus of Control, that I feel I control some aspects of my life, but not others. From this result, employers (and perhaps the test-taker) infer that I can’t control those other things because I don’t believe in my own ability to affect change, and not because there are just so many things that others or I cannot control. And that’s where I disagree. I have high self-efficacy, high regard for my own abilities, but I also recognize that everything I’ve accomplished isn’t solely due to me, and that others may be more disadvantaged than I am. Just another example of how personality tests don’t do a great job of capturing the complexity of human attributes. 

I should say: though I’ve been railing against personality tests for not being able to capture the entire human experience, that is (1) incredibly difficult for any test to do, and (2) not necessarily the goal of personality tests. These tests are meant to provide merely a glimpse into someone’s life—there are a lot of other ways people get to know the real you, like, oh shoot what’s it called...conversing. So in a way, perhaps I’m getting bent out of shape for nothing: I’m getting frustrated because these tests aren’t serving the purpose they aren’t created to. 

BUT EVEN SO these tests could do a better job of capturing the complexity that is humanity. How can something as complex as personality be boiled down to A or B? It’s just annoying to be told that I’m either a circle or a square when I’m really a star. 

~~~Extra~~~

Here’s another paragraph I didn’t incorporate into the body

Another thing I’d like to note about personality tests is that if you know what an employer is searching for, it’s easy to answer questions in a way that makes you look very favorable. For example, if you’re taking an Five Factor Model test (“The Big Five,” or “OCEAN,” as some may know it) and you know that conscientious is correlated well across job performance, and neuroticism poorly, then you answer questions in a way that make you seem reliable, trustworthy, and emotionally stable. "Of course my room is always clean!” “Of course I’m not easily upset!" And if you want a promotion, just make sure to answer the questions about extraversion in a manner that paints as, well, extraverted. These correlations are not too hard to look into, and anyone with basic knowledge of this can manipulate their answers in a way that makes them appear more desirable than they may really be. Of course, it will be quickly apparent when doing the job what your real personality is like, but you don’t want to hire someone only to fire them immediately after. 

~~~Further Resources~~~

Popular Personality Tests (just google them)

FFM—Five Factor Model

MBTI—Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

LoC—Locus of Control

Stuff on extraversion/introversion/ambiversion came from Susan Cain’s book, Quiet.

Breast Cancer Slacktivism

Last week I noticed my friend had posted a weird status on facebook. I had seen someone else post it, so I assumed they had clicked on some bad site and it was auto-posting to their status without their knowledge. I commented and said that. I got this message in response: 

Ok, how in any way does this raise awareness for breast cancer??? It doesn’t! The status that you’re supposed to post doesn’t mention breast cancer, and the message you receive if you comment on it doesn’t say anything other than “continue the game for breast cancer awareness.” 

This is slacktivism at it’s finest, and I hesitate to use that word. Even while people denounced #BringBackOurGirls as slacktivism for not producing any tangible results, it did raise actual awareness for the issue—people knew what was happening. This status doesn't even attempt to explain what is happening until you "fall victim" to it by commenting or liking it. 

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge also faced allegations of slacktivism, yet it is anything but. It encouraged a lot of people to actually learn about ALS. It raised $115 million in 6 weeks. And it may have helped scientists find a legitimate breakthrough in not just ALS but a host of other diseases. These nice things happened because (1) it was fun to watch celebrities dumping buckets of water on their heads, and (2) it said “do this ridiculous thing OR DONATE MONEY.” That last part is crucial. 

Back to the breast cancer status. It doesn’t encourage people to donate. It doesn’t encourage people to learn about the disease. It doesn't even raise awareness, which is the least it could do. It doesn’t do anything helpful. What it DOES do is guilt people into reposting it, for fear of being anti-fun or anti-breast cancer. And that’s why responses like this usually tend to take people back:

If you take “for breast cancer awareness” out of the original facebook post, it’s just a social media game. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! It’s social media, have fun with it. But don’t claim it supports breast cancer when it really doesn’t. 

Here’s a status that actually raises awareness for Breast Cancer:

Actually, the only way I think this status may raise awareness of breast cancer is that it gets a small percentage of people angry enough that they make their own post about how it raises awareness. I guess that's technically true, but it doesn't sit right with me. 

Feel free to disagree (and explain why)!

Want the Truth? Dig Deep.

I’ve recently been thinking about how difficult it can be to uncover the truth. Let me explain...

I’m writing a script for a YouTube video on electric cars. Specifically, “Are Electric Cars ACTUALLY Better for the Environment?” The totally uninformed answer is “uh, YA, we’re not burning fossil fuels!” The slightly-more-informed, yet still-not-complete answer is “well, no, because the electricity has to be generated somehow, and that’ll probably be with coal donchaknow?” 

The answer to this question (if we ever arrive at at truly definitive one) is not easy to come by because there are so many articles  and studies and professors and programs saying totally different things. Look at the results we get when we google search this question in two different ways:

Only one of the top 4 results articles is the same and the other three seem at least partially framed for the searcher. Can we trust those? And can we necessarily trust the Washington Examiner article just because it appeared in both?

HOW TO FIND THE TRUTH: You have to dig, and you’ll start by opening many (if not all) of these articles. If they cite no specific research or statistics (which some actually do), you can probably throw it out. If they cite research, look up the paper. Read the “methods” section. Contact the authors if you’re still confused. This is how you start obtaining what might be the closest thing to objective “truth” we’ll find. Sometimes this can be simple, and just one or two sites will explain away the misconceptions. But sometimes it goes deeper, deeper to the point where I start wondering how two legitimate, respectable parties have arrived at totally antithetical positions through supposedly similar methodology. 

This definitely takes a lot of time, trust me. But there are so so many instances of people fitting one study or one anecdote to a specific narrative that it can be practically irresponsible to trust just the first source you see for modern issues (This holds especially for politicized issues like Green energy…again, see that Chicago Tribune article from before). 

[From all the research I’ve done, I’ve reached my own conclusions about this specific question—if you want to read it, scroll to the bottom of this post.]

This also makes me think about politics. I consider myself politically literate even though there is so much I don’t know and can never hope to know. In fact, I (like many others) am politically literate in the same way tenth graders can read—I can digest information, but I’m not going to be able to make analyses and draw conclusions the way someone who’s studied this their whole life could. Now there are some things in which I fundamentally believe because I think they are just: people should have equal rights, people shouldn’t have to go hungry, etc. And then there are things in which I believe not because I know, but only because I take the word of people who know more than me: how our involvement in the Middle East will affect our/their future, whether trickle down economics works or not, etc. 

I’ve increasingly been thinking that it’s impossible to definitively know the answers to that second group of questions. There are literally hundreds of factors simultaneously influencing these situations, and to claim there is just one cause or effect is totally narrow-minded. And then there are people who will say what they believe, even when that belief is unjustified or unsubstantiated, simply because it feels right or makes sense. (Full disclosure, I, and probably all of you, have done this before and will continue to.)

You have to really go deep when you want to know if something is genuinely true. It’s really fun to do that, and so rewarding when you arrive at something true and concrete! But it’s possible that not everything has a concrete answer. So what should we do when we encounter those problems? Well…I’m not sure. I don’t think the answer is giving up, but I sure don’t know what it is. 

~~~My own conclusions about electric vehicles and their “cleanliness”~~~

The general consensus seems to be that if the electricity needed to charge an EV (electric vehicle) is produced with clean technology (little-to-0 C02 emissions) like solar, wind, or nuclear, then the EV is better. But if it’s produced with electricity generated by the burning of coal, then it’s probably dirtier. 

My own research has lead me to believe that even in the states with the highest percentages of electricity generation spurred by coal-burning, EVs are no dirtier than gasoline-powered cars, and may even be cleaner. If you’re interested in how I reached that conclusion, contact me!

P.S. My research is still in progress, so my opinion may shift. 

EDIT: Here are my fully-researched findings: http://imgur.com/qCN7W6w

Columbus Day

So every time Columbus Day comes around, I've noticed two distinct reactions. First, the "yay, no school/work!" crowd who couldn't care less what Columbus did to earn them their day off. The second crowd—which seems to be increasing by the day—says something like "yes, perfect, let's HONOR a man who raped and killed thousands of natives and committed a bunch of other atrocities." Now I'm not going to cite stats or accounts of what Columbus did, because they're easily verifiable. I agree with this crowd that Columbus was not at all innocent or a saint. But I do want to make a counterargument for all the people who seem immovably wedged within that viewpoint.

It's really easy to say Columbus was an awful man because of the utter destruction he wrought on the native people of the Americas. But Columbus' coming was a major reason Europeans came to America—if Columbus didn't come here, we wouldn't exist at all, or our lives would be drastically different. We might be living in another country or technological age surely behind our current.

So think about it this way: if you could sacrifice your life to change time so that those atrocities never happened...would you? I wouldn't. Maybe that sounds selfish, but I've become accustomed to living and my family and society. Changing history back would literally disrupt everything, including our very existence.

It seems natural to celebrate a person who helped create an entire culture, but does that hold even if another culture was virtually destroyed in the process? Instead of unilaterally demonizing or praising our Italian friend, we should recognize him for the good things he did for our culture while being cognizant of the legitimately horrible things he did for another.